Pulitzer winner returns to roots at Mtn. View High

Jose Antonio Vargas, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the Washington Post, returned last week to his alma mater, Mountain View High School, to talk to students about the importance of a good education. He's seen here talking with his mentor, former Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School Superintendent Rich Fischer. The Los Altos Town Crier covered his talk:

Vargas, mixing humor with humility and an ability to poke fun at his naiveté, described going to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and expecting to see the Gap.

He found himself drawn to writing stories about the powerless and the forgotten.

“I wanted to go to the bad part of Washington, D.C.,” he said. “The idea of a powerful city with powerless people intrigued me.”

More. (Photo credit: Liz Nyberg, Town Crier)

Pulitzer awarded for James Kim stories

The story of James Kim of San Francisco, who died in an attempt to rescue his stranded family in the Oregon mountains, resulted in a Pulitzer Prize for The Oregonian newspaper in Portland. Above, in this AP photo, Oregonian editor Sandy Rowe rejoices this morning over the news that her paper won the Pulitzer for breaking news.

Once again, no Bay Area newspaper won a Pulitzer this year. Cities with newspapers that did win included New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Sacramento and Birmingham, Ala. Renee C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee was honored for feature photography for her portrayal of a single mother and her young son as he loses his battle with cancer.

The Pulitzer Prize Patrol hasn't visited the San Jose Mercury News since 1990. Same for the Oakland Tribune. The Chronicle had one two years ago for photography by Deanne Fitzmaurice and another in 1996 awarded to columnist Herb Caen. The Hearst-owned Examiner had one in 1987 for photography and the Merc in 1986 for international reporting. No Bay Area dailies won Pulitzers in the 1960s or 70s.

TOTALS BY NEWSPAPER: Merc 2, Oakland Tribune 2, Examiner (Hearst) 2, Chronicle 5, Denver Post 4, Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal 4, Seattle Times 7, Miami Herald 18, Philadelphia Inquirer 18, Boston Globe 19, Chicago Tribune 24, Wall Street Journal 31, LA Times 38, NY Times, 94. Figures include today's awards.

Pulitzer proposed for KR's pre-war coverage

Two years ago, the Pulitzer committee turned down an entry from Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau for its reports challenging the Bush administration during the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. "Those stories arguably were of Pulitzer Prize quality. After all, while much of the press joined in lock-step with the administration's march to war, Knight Ridder (now McClatchy Newspapers) and its three correspondents [Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott] had the courage to buck the tide and dig out well-grounded misgivings about the build-up to war," writes Gilbert Cranberg, a University of Iowa journalism professor and former Des Moines Register editorial page editor. Cranberg argues that the Pulitzer committee should now reconsider the work of these reporters and issue a special citation or special award. It has done so 30 times in the past, he points out. "This country's press did not distinguish itself with its pre-war Iraq coverage. The equivalent of mea culpas run by both the [New York] Times and the [Washington] Post are a measure of how deficient it was. The 'lonely journalism' of Knight Ridder and staffers Landay, Strobel and Walcott were outstanding exceptions that merit Pulitzer recognition," Cranberg writes.